“O Brother, Where Art Thou?” screens at the Colony Thursday night

Thursday night, the Colony Theater’s new Music at the Movies series continues with the Coen Brothers’ depression-era comedy “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (2000).

George Clooney heads the cast as Ulysses Everett McGill, an escaped convict in early ’30s Mississippi who figures himself to have the “capacity for abstract thought” while “endowed with the gift of gab.”

Clooney, and his fellow escapees (John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson), set off on a journey to find a fortune of hidden heist money and, as its a Coen Brothers film, they run into lots of colorful characters, including Chris Thomas King, Daniel von Bargen, Charles Durning, and John Goodman, along the way.

Goodman, whose fourth film with the Coens this was, incidentally will appear in the Brothers’ next project, “Inside Llewyn Davis,” another period music-themed movie set in New York’s folk music scene during the ’60s.

Another Coen Brothers veteran, Holly Hunter, puts in a performance in “O Brother” as Clooney’s ex-wife.

The film, an inspired re-telling of Homer’s “Odyssey,” is filled with folk and bluegrass songs performed by Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, John Hartford, The Stanley Brothers and the film’s fictional group Soggy Mountain Boys, among others.

All that “fine a-pickin’ and a-singin’” (as Stephen Root says in the film) amounted to a best-selling soundtrack that was a huge No. 1 hit (certified eight times platinum) on the Country and Soundtrack charts, inspired a concert tour (documented in the concert film “Down From The Mountain”) and earned a bunch of Grammys including Album of the Year.

Another bit of trivia: Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney has said that “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” was his favorite movie. But don’t let that discourage you from attending the screening.

It starts at 7:30. Admission is $5.50. RSVP to the screening on the Colony’s Facebook event page.

Next up in the Colony’s Music at the Movies series: Stephen Frears‘ 2000 rock geek rom com “High Fidelity,” starring John Cusack, on September 27th, and John Landis‘ immortal 1980 musical comedy extravaganza “The Blues Brothers,” starring the legendary duo of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, on October 25th.

Please follow the Raleigh Indie Movie Examiner via the subscribe button above and get additional articles on Film Babble Blog. Also follow @filmbabble on Twitter.